Naked and afraid
by dhalpin3
Summary: This is a story about Illyana 2.0 shortly after she was re-embodied but still hiding in limbo from Belasco. Before she hurt Megan. This is an additional examination of her time alone that I have written about in several of my stories (There are no snowflakes in hell) and in (Snowflake on ice).


**Naked and Afraid**

Author's note: Always like the original ShadowCat from the Ororo/Illyana mini series Magik. Great character, good and complex back story and was never really used again. Illyana spent several years with Cat in the wilderness and several years with Belasco where Cat was his slave. I've always felt that the Illyana/Cat dynamic deserved more exploration.

This is a story about Illyana 2.0 shortly after she was re-embodied but still hiding in limbo from Belasco. Before she hurt Megan. This is an additional examination of her time alone that I have written about in several of my stories (There are no snowflakes in hell) and in (Snowflake on ice).

 **Part 1: Afraid**

Much was lost to her. Language, memory, identity, morality. All were mostly gone. Her dreams still had such concepts and abilities, but her dreams tortured her with what she was, with what she was not. With things that could not possibly exit. With things she could no longer understand.

She hid. Hid from **HIM** , the **FATHER**. Least **HE** find her again. Do **THAT** again to her. It was a bad time. Alone and prey to her fears; which were so many.

She lived in a remote limbo wilderness where time ran faster. Much much faster. She survived by hunting small prey animals with claw and rock. She did not know how to hunt very well, those were very hungry times.

She did not age. She did not change. Time was suspended as it were for her. This went on for a long time.

There was only one real constant.

Fear.

Fear of **HIM**.

Fear of others.

Fear of her dreams.

Fear of everything.

When she wasn't hunting she hid. She did nothing when she hid. Just hid and was afraid.

In her cave were the remains of old fires; not her's at that time, fire was yet another thing that was beyond her. One day as she sat and was afraid she picked up a chunk of charcoal to throw when she heard a sound. The sound turned out to be nothing, just the wind that knocked over a pebble that was poised to fall from a minor gully embankment.

After a while she felt... well not safe but not immediately threatened, she lowered her arm and put down the piece of charcoal. Her hand was streaked black from the charcoal. Something in her mind was intrigued by this.

She picked up the chunk of charcoal again and looked at it. It was a burnt piece of wood roughly five inches long. She looked at it for a long time, and then at the cave wall.

The cave was roughly ten feet deep, four feet high and three feet wide. The cave walls were a smooth dingy white/yellow in color as if the cave was made of old limestone. The floor was dirt. The back of the cave tampered into nothing. The ceiling was rough stone. The cave did not make her feel secure, but she could hid better here. She hesitantly scratched a vertical line on the cave wall and then dropped the charcoal like it was hot.

She stared at the line for a while and then lost interest. She went back to being afraid and being very very quiet as she hid. After a long while she slept; to be troubled by her dreams as always.

She awoke to find her face wet from her tears; a frequent awakening for her. But better then the screams and convulsions. She grabbed the charcoal and made a second line next to the first line. She put down the charcoal this time instead of dropping it. She stared at the two lines for what must have been hours before hunger and thirst motivated her to hunt.

And so time passed.

 **Part 2: Alone**

One wall of the cave was covered in black lines; there was no more room to draw the lines without filling in the space between the lines. She turned to the other cave wall, the one she slept against to draw the first of that wall's lines, but she did not. She stared at the wall for a long time.

Then instead of drawing a line she drew a big circle and several smaller circles within the circle and some lines. It was a crude figure. It looked kind of like this.

. . .xxxx

x . . . . . . x

x. . 0 0 . . x

x. .. ^ . . .x

x. . ._ . . x

. . .xxxx

She stared at what she had drawn. A small smile slightly showed on her face for the very first time, but then tears started to silently flow from her eyes. She opened her mouth and tried to make a sound, to give voice to her feelings, to this new and strange hurt. She had no concept of grief for another.

 _"_ _ **C**_ _cccc a"_. She swallowed and tried again.

 _ **C**_ _ccc_ _ **A**_ _aaaaa"._ There was a lump in her throat. She tried harder.

 _ **C**_ _cc_ _ **A**_ _aaa tttt"._ Almost there. Once more.

 _ **C**_ _caatttt"._ Close. One last time.

 _ **"C**_ _at"._ She smiled in triumph though the tears.

 _"Cat, cat, cat, cat"_ she chanted to herself and then she cried for a reason she could not understand.

 **Part 3: Cat**

More time passed...

The other side of the cave was now filled with crude drawings of Cat. Not the animal cat, but a female person she called Cat. One like herself but older, bigger, stronger then she was. Cat made her feel... well safer. Protected. Like something cared about her.

She was starting to remember the lessons Cat had taught her.

How to chip a rock just so to create tools like a knives and scrappers.

How to stalk and hunt (she started to eat more and better).

How to fight (she found herself practicing ?combat moves? in a small dusty clearing).

How to handle fear (she was still afraid, just not as crippled by it any more).

How to weave dry grasses in twigs into little baskets and things (she created a little totem of Cat rather like a small doll). She would leave the doll in her cave when she hunted.

One day she awaked from one of those dreams. The dreams of things was not possible. Good things that did not exist for her, could never exist, would never exist. The dreams of other times. She always awoke from such dreams in convulsions. The words of the **FATHER** screaming in her mind as everything turned to dust and blood. **NOT HER YOU ARE NOT HER.**

As always she grabbed and hugged the little doll of Cat, seeking what comfort was possible for one such as her. After a while she left to hunt.

she returned from hunting to find another was in her cave. One of them had found her. The creatures she hid from. She had no words yet for the other creatures.

She froze in terror. She had been found. FOUND!

She could hear noises in the cave, scratching and digging. She turned to go but then remembered her totem of Cat. A new fear surfaced in her life, fear of losing something she had, the only thing she had. Cat.

She crept silently to the side of the cave opening (just like Cat had taught her).

She quickly glanced into the cave (just like Cat had taught her).

There was a thing in the cave. Scaly, two legs and arms, horns, claws and a short stubby tail (yes it was a minor demon).

Fight or flight, fight or flight. She trembled in panic. Where was Cat? She glanced in again. There Cat was, under the left foot of the creature. Cat... Cat was torn apart. Dismembered.

Cat was destroyed.

Gone.

Forever.

She froze. Made a sound, a whimper of loss.

The demon heard it. Turned. Roared in fury and challenge.

Run. Need to run. But Cat... Cat is gone. He... He killed her, took Cat from her. The only thing she had. The only thing that cared about her.

Rage awoke within her. She remembered more of what Cat had taught her. She had remembered how to stalk and kill. She now remembered how to fight and kill. More then just rage awoke, her magic's awoke as well.

She went into a berserker killing rage and dealt with the demon (just like Cat had taught her).

 **Part 4: Darkchilde**

Gory bits of the dismembered demon were scattered over the cave and the area next to the cave's opening. She was sitting on a rock in front of her cave eating the demon's heart drenched head to toe in the blood of the demon.

She remembered so much now, still but a sliver of what she had used to know, but so much compared to what she had been before.

Cat.

Cat was gone.

Had been gone for a long time.

And she had killed Cat.

Killed that which mattered most to her.

She hated herself.

Hated everything.


End file.
